What you say happens a lot. Another thing that happens is someone in the industry thinks they have a leg up in bypassing the new regulations. So they propose the new regulation to harm competitors. Perhaps someone specializing in fairly small cargo ships (who also hopes the new regulation wouldn't be applied to).
The joke is always in them if they succeed getting the simple and easy-to-meet refs passed. The greenies are NEVER EVER satisfied. They are masters of incrementalism, just like communists. They keep coming back with tougher and tougher regs, year after year, decade after decade. At some point they have bled the industry dry and move in to another one. The proposed mercury regs on coal plants was their bridge too far. Of course, that became moot because they succeeded in making it almost impossible to burn coal.